Memory

Karen Handel, has resigned as the anti-abortion zealot who as vice-president for public policy at the Susan G. Komen Foundation. She was hip-deep (or higher) in the failed attempt to cut Komen’s contributions to Planned Parenthood. Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

But a woman’s right to choose isn’t the only thing she hates. In her failed run for Georgia governor in 2010, she said this in an interview with a local newscaster, discussing her support of outlawing gay adoption.

Q. I guess I want to know why you think gay parents aren’t as legitimate as heterosexual parents.

A: Because I don’t.

My favorite bit of logic is when she says she’s opposed to gay marriage, and then says she thinks gay couples shouldn’t adopt, because...you guessed it... they can’t be married!

Give Mitt Romney props. Of his gazillion flip-flops, the one thing he couldn’t pretend to be (and to his further credit, he didn’t even seem to try), is be a racist.

But Newt, the South Carolina primary is made for a guy like him.

Then the religion card: the increasing anti-religious “bigotry” of the elites will be his enemy. He will deploy race and religion and nationalism as his themes. No wonder South Carolina loved him. And rather than retreating on the racially charged “food stamp president” line, he reiterates it.

This is what the GOP now is, and it deserves its spokesman. But do not under-estimate the appeal to some of the idea of humiliating and removing the first black president. That's what Gingrich is really about. He is giving them what they want. And it's meat that has barely seen a skillet.

Then we hear about Obama's “extreme left-wing allies from San Francisco” and now he is a “danger to this country”. “He makes Jimmy Carter look strong.” He wants the final showdown between America and socialism/Marxism/radicalism/Jihadism/Obama. And the rage among some about a black president actually exercising authority is real. This man can roil it brutally, shamelessly, mercilessly. And he will.

Of course he will. Whether he believes any of it or not, I don’t know, and it doesn’t even particularly matter. He’s the golfing buddy you want to be talking to about making sure your dumb-ass kid gets that summer job. As Andrew Sullivan wrote last night, Gingrich, “knows in his bones how to work this constituency”. He’s the id of the Republican base, and its relaxed-fit avatar.

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger”— that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger”.

This past Monday, was the 207th anniversary of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr at the cliffs under Weehawken. Hamilton, of course, was fatally wounded, and lingered in agony, before dying the next day in Manhattan.

What always strikes me about the event, was that at the time of the confrontation, Burr was Vice-President of the United States.

“Mr. Vice-President — is that a pistol in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To have a duel with Alexander Hamilton.”

Likwise, how does anyone let Hamilton have a duel with the Vice-President?

WTF?!

Burr never stood trial, and though he remained Vice-President, his political career was over.

Hamilton is a hero of mine. Rising from an illegitimate birth in the West Indies, and orphaned by 13, he so impressed the locals, they banded together to pay for his voyage to North America, so that he could continue his studies. After being rebuffed by the toffs at Princeton, (for asking to complete his studies at an accelerated pace), he graduated from King’s College (now Columbia). Through his work and brilliance, he rose to Lieutanant Colonel in the Continental Army, and and chief-of-staff to George Washington, all by his mid 20’s.

Hamilton served as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury, and came up with the plan for the federal government to assume the debt of the states, that was accumulated during the war.

In a foreshadowing of current debate, Jefferson, a smart guy, but no Hamilton (or John Adams), opposed the United States taking on the debt. Hamilton prevailed, after agreeing to Jefferson’s demand that the permanent capital of the U.S. be on the Potomac.

He was a lawyer, and founder of the Bank of New York. He also served in the New York State Legislature and Continental Congress. A New Yorker through and through, his grave is in the churchyard of Trinity Church, steps from Wall Street.